Scott E Sub Sport

I am fond of walking on a bicycle. And very carefully approached vyborus his iron horse. It is very convenient. lightweight, bike lovers advise.

400 miles now since I bought my Scott from the nice people at CycleStreets York at end of August. I had expected to have done more by now but I've had an unexpectedly high amount of working away which has cut down on the commuting miles.

So far I'm very happy. I really like how the bike feels to ride. Just the right balance of sportiness and comfort. I have a 12 mile commute each way with one fairly big hill which the bike flies up in high power mode and 5th gear. I use a mixture of eco and normal for the rest of the trip. I can do this round trip twice on a single battery charge but I choose to charge it after each return trip . I am tall and weigh 14 stone and also carry a fairly full ortlieb office bag pannier attached to one side of a tortec ultralight rack with a heavy abus ugrip ulock mounted on the other side. I'm not sure how this effects the range but I'm confident that I could easily see over 50 miles on normal roads in normal conditions with all the clutter removed. If I was feeling really lazy and rode everywhere on high assist mode and did't help much I would still expect 30 miles.

I really like the whole shimano steps package. The motor and power levels suit my type of riding. The di2 alfine 8 speed hub gear is trouble free and smooth and has a good range. My previous bike was a 21 speed mtb conversion and I was worried that I'd miss the choice of gears. In the real world I think the alfine covers everything that I've ever needed. There is a very steep hill near me which is 1km long averaging 10% with a maximum of 14% which is no problem in high assist. Not sure if I'd like to tackle it without the motor though, maybe that would be the limit of the alfine 8 speed. 8th Gear is high enough for 30+mph downhill sections where you can still feel like you are peddling at a reasonable cadence. I really like the auto downshift to third when I stop at lights. The only (very) slight downside is a slightly bigger gap between 6th and 7th than would be ideal. There was also occasionally a very slight (almost imperceptible) ticking noise from the hub when in 8th which is fading now as it has a few more miles on it. Once in a while it clunks more solidly into gear when I thought it had already settled in it but that's very rare. I'm not looking forward to getting a puncture in the rear wheel as it won't be as simple to fix however. I've pre-empted this hopefully by buying a double ended tube (rubena gaadi) which I hope might make the whole thing easier by negating the need to remove the wheel.

The Scwalbe little big ben tyres seem robust. I probably could run them at a slightly lower pressure, especially on the front. I tend to have them at 60psi. I might experiment with dropping the front to about 40 and see if it makes the ride smoother.

The shimano hydraulic disk brakes are very good and I like the simple platform style pedals, although I have had my foot slip off them vey occasionally in the wet. The mudguards are vital as I end up riding in the rain quite a lot! They are very well made and (just) long enough to do a good job of keeping the spray away from me. The built in lights are a bit of a revelation. I wasn't expecting them to be as bright, and so far my worries about their robustness have been unfounded. I really like how they blend in. The bike is almost completely rattle free apart from an occasional tiny one that comes and goes which seems to be from the front mudguard. My main suspect is the built in light or the wires that run to it but I haven't been able to pin it down.

As you can see I changed the original saddle almost immediately to my brookes from my old bike which I love. The 30 or so miles that I rode the bike with the original saddle weren't unbearable although I was glad to change it.

I like the tortec rack as it's light and minimal. It took a bit of a stretch to widen it at the base to get it to fit but nothing too serious! It seems very solid now it's fitted.

The only other sign of wear and tear is the right hand grip which is starting to tear a little. Not a big deal as I will expect it will last quite some time even if it frays a little bit (and it will give me something to shop for at some point!) As it is otherwise I've run out of things to buy to improve it!